Models Servant Leadership

This week's post was written by Scott Peterson.

Servant leadership is one of Interstates’ most important principles, and it's one of the scariest to write about. Why? It’s simple; I don't want to be (I can't be) the poster child for servant leadership. I can't live up to the standard of a servant leader. I will mess up, make mistakes, and become selfish, just to name a few of the reasons.

Modeling servant leadership is a journey, not a destination. That might sound cliché, but if the goal is to be a servant leader, then how others perceive you becomes too important. Your ego becomes the driver, which, in turn, makes you less vulnerable and more self-centered. There is an old saying that warns us if someone tells you to trust him or her, beware. Actions really do speak louder than words.

For me, giving up the finish line of becoming a servant leader was a freeing step. It allowed me to have the right mindset, which includes putting the focus on others, because it isn't about me (or you). It is about helping, serving, and leading others.

Modeling servant leadership has four aspects of equal importance:

Genuinely Care

• Show agape love to all people, but especially to your people.
• Listen to others in a way that lets them know they've been heard. This empathy shows them they are important and their ideas matter.
• Be curious about what is going on with the whole person (professional, personal, wins, struggles, etc.).

Enjoy Serving

• Focus on helping, supporting, encouraging, and leading others. You will watch them develop, grow, and succeed – and few things are more rewarding.
• Enable people to reach new heights by helping them through challenges. You can also help indirectly by offering ideas and suggestions, but not solving problems for them. As Jim Franken used to say, "Help people help themselves."

Be Approachable and Authentic

• Share personal information (beliefs, frustrations, feelings, stories, etc.). This allows others to get to know you and builds strong relationships.
• Embrace your strengths, weaknesses, mistakes, and goals by sharing them with your team. This transparency will model humility. There's a quote from The Purpose Driven Life that says "Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less."
• Have enough self-confidence to ask for others’ opinions. Keep this door open so that people are willing to share their ideas with you.

Do the Right Thing

• Be a good steward of our people and of the company's resources by making the right decision, which is not always the popular or safe decision.
• Place the needs (not wants) of others above your own.
• Although servant leadership is hard, focus on what is best for everyone, and always remember why you're leading.

Interstates is blessed to have so many leaders who have excelled at modeling servant leadership. Darrel Ramhorst was one of those people. He was a quiet leader; most of the time, he didn't get much attention, and he was okay with that. I was always amazed by how Darrel led. One of his strengths was his ability and desire to teach people and help them grow. His servant leadership took on the form of helping hundreds of people pass journeyman tests or PE exams. People wanted to learn and meet those goals. They knew how much Darrel invested in them and cared about them, and they did not want to let him down.

The best Interstates leaders start with a caring heart and a strong desire to serve others. Learn from them, and then make the journey your own. Remember, servant leadership isn't a status that you achieve – it’s a way of doing things that needs to be practiced every day. Enjoy the journey of modeling servant leadership. It will have some highs and lows, but it will be one of the most fulfilling journeys you'll ever experience. Choose to lead the Interstates Way by modeling servant leadership today, and then choose to do it again tomorrow.

Setting Direction

This week's post was written by Jack Woelber.

For those of you who have gone through Interstates’ Excellence In Leadership (EIL) program, “setting direction” should be a very familiar term. For those who have not yet been through EIL, one of the acronyms regularly used in our training is SAM. The “S” stands for setting direction. It is one of the major tenets in the model Interstates uses when training employees on leadership.

Why is setting direction critical? 

You may have heard the saying, “I’m their leader, which way did they go?” Most employees are more than willing to work hard, but without direction, you might not know which way they are going. Directionless, their work can be unmotivated and less beneficial to the organization. When clear direction is established while leading operations, employees will display more purpose and can add more value by contributing their own ideas. When a leader fails in setting direction, employees can carry out a task but are limited on how much they can ultimately help.

How do we communicate a clear direction? 

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Just because I said it doesn’t mean they heard it”? This is so true regarding setting direction. You may feel like you have laid out a clear direction for your team, but without confirmation and follow up, it may have not been “heard.” Communicating the direction may take multiple efforts in different ways for your team to truly “see” the direction. Everyone learns and understands through different methods, and it is up to you to be sure you have done a good job of setting an understandable direction. Having an effective rapport with your team and allowing them to feel comfortable asking clarifying questions can be a major asset in ensuring they understand the direction.

Another way to set clear direction is creating goals and stretch goals. This format can “paint” a direction for the team to understand. By having them participate in setting those goals, employees have buy-in and know what they can do to help reach those goals. With everyone pulling in the same direction with clarity, the chances of getting there are much higher.

Limited resources!

Sometimes there are multiple ways to get to the same destination. When setting direction, we need to take into consideration the resources we have available to us in time, energy, and money. Choosing the best way may not always be the least expensive or the quickest, but we need to determine if we can achieve our goals within the boundaries of our limited resources. If not, we may have to adjust our direction to achieve what we can within our “budget.”

Direction versus vision

One might wonder why setting direction is under the category of leading operations rather than leading strategy. Using Interstates’ lingo, Leading Strategy involves casting a vision. Setting direction needs to align with the vision and the strategy but refers more to leading operations than leading strategy. While these two things are closely related and need to reinforce each other, both are unique elements of leadership.

Setting direction is critical to leadership at Interstates. In our leadership training we spend a lot of time and energy talking about and training on it. My challenge to you is to consciously think about setting direction in a way that gets everyone pulling in the same direction with a common goal.

Keep leading the Interstates way!

Jack Woelber

Leading with Trust

This week's post was written by Doug Post.

Interstates defines trust as: “Having confidence in another’s character, expertise, abilities, and integrity.”

We build our own trustworthiness with integrity and dependability.

Interstates’ core value of trust focuses on extending trust to others.  Jim Franken encouraged us to "be tireless believers in people." If a mistake happens, don't say "they don't get it" or "they don't care", rather extend trust and ask "how did I set this up poorly?" or "what delegation mistake did I make?"

Trust is the cornerstone to building strong relationships with clients and team members.

As we delve into the topic of trust, I’d like you to take a minute and think of a person with whom you have a high-trust relationship. (boss, coworker, spouse, parent, sibling, child, friend.)  What words would you use to describe the relationship?  What's it like? (e.g. open, honest)  How does it feel? (relaxed, easy)  How well do you communicate?  How quickly do you get things done?  How much do you enjoy this relationship?

Now think of a person with whom you have a low-trust relationship.  Again, this person could be anyone at work or outside of work. Describe the relationship. What's it like? (e.g. uneasy, suspicious, painstaking, excruciating)  How does it feel? (not relaxed, on-guard, painful) How is the communication?  Does it flow quickly and freely or do you feel like you're constantly walking on land mines and being misunderstood? Do you work together to get things done quickly or does it take a disproportionate amount of time and energy to finally reach agreement and execution? Do you enjoy the relationship or do you find it tedious, cumbersome, and draining? 

I think you can see how important trust is to the culture we are building at Interstates. Consider how important extending trust is for onboarding new employees and for "Delivering Results"!

In his book The Speed of Trust, Stephen Covey talks about the rewards and the risks associated with extending trust. There are two extremes:  people who don’t trust enough – they are always suspicious.  And people who trust too much – they are totally gullible. 

Within these extremes Covey has broken down trust into 4 different types.

 

• #1 - Gullibility - is blind trust; you trust everyone
• #2 - Judgment - is Smart Trust - this is your target area. You analyze to make a good decision using both good business judgment and good people judgment (including instinct and intuition) to make a decision.
• #3 - Indecision - No trust offered to others or self
• #4 - Suspicion - Distrust of others

The goal is to find middle ground here – or the “sweet spot”. That requires using good judgment. You decide the amount of trust you extend to someone. You learn, over time, if someone is trust-worthy by entrusting them with more and more responsibility. You don’t hand people full trust right off the bat. You also use your judgment to decide what level of trust to offer someone.  For example, I trust my wife to take care of our kids or teach a classroom of students; I don't trust her to lead the startup of a project at one of our customer’s facilities. That honors her character and honestly recognizes her competencies.   

You have to have the right person, with the right competencies, for the task at hand. For example, when a new employee begins at Interstates, we gradually build trust with one another. We don’t give them our top project or top client without monitoring progress with them. We work together to build trust by extending it to each other. In this case, we follow Ronald Reagan’s advice to: Trust, but verify.

If Interstates leaders remember that trust on the job is more often about competency than character (we already trust most of our co-workers' character), think of the power and speed of saying "I do or don't trust your ability to. . ."

To wrap things up, trust will always involve some risk. You have to learn how to extend "Smart Trust" using good judgment. Are you building trustworthiness in your relationships? Do conversations help you distinguish between the character and competence of trust? If not, you are likely being too gullible, indecisive, or suspicious to realize the speed of trust. If you would like to learn more about trust, I encourage you to read The Speed of Trust by Stephen M.R. Covey. For a quick preview on the principles and behaviors of trust, see http://www.speedoftrust.com/How-The-Speed-of-Trust-works/book.

Continue Leading the Interstates way . . .  by Extending Trust to others!